He was called the Clown Prince of Crime, a first-round contender for the title of “Best Batman Villain of All Time” and a supervillain IP with the same brand recognition as his nemesis Caper Crusader. For most actors, it’s an excuse to act HAM and/or go extremely over the top. For Joaquin Phoenix and director Todd Phillips, the character was a chance to play around with decades of comic book mythology and turn him into God’s Lonely Bozo – an amalgamation of anti-heroes that stretch back to the Carter era. Regardless, the Joker has always been an all-purpose agent of chaos. But what he Really I wanted to sing.

There is a world in which Phillips and Phoenix deliver a sequel to their billion-dollar-grossing, Oscar-winning, international festival favorite joker film that is simply a Xerox copy of the original, with more of Arthur Fleck – stand-up comedian, true crime star, accidental cult leader – leading his made-up henchmen through the city streets, wreaking havoc and watching, how the world burns. Luckily, they didn’t do that and instead decided to tap dance on a road less traveled. There would be a sequel. That was inevitable. But rather than rehash all of the Scorsese cosplay and potential incel baiting of the first film, the duo would continue this Fleck story with an MGM-style musical, with Phoenix and Lady Gaga (!) cranking out standards and a small one Make soft shoes. Somewhere out there, the ghost of Arthur Freed nodded in agreement.

Say whatever you want Joker: Folie à Deuxit’s a different, more melodic beast than its predecessor. And you can’t call what they’re doing fan service when you consider that it’s a bad idea to elevate and emulate disturbed, antisocial people just because they’re in an undeveloped rage. In fact, this sequel is the exact opposite of fan service – in its rare moments of clarity, you could swear that this was actually an indictment of those who flocked to it joker first of all. Laugh and the whole world laughs with you. Flip the bird to those who loved your “Nihilism, jippity-dee!” However, the first time you use Mojo, you may find yourself alone in front of a mob. The closest thing to a message of any kind is: Hey, fanatics? Go fuck yourself.

Some things remain the same, though: Philips is clearly still obsessed with a vision of Gotham that’s part Fear City and part New Hollywood Redux fodder; “Phoenix” is still bare bones, bending over backwards, sometimes literally, in the name of hardcore commitment (like the original). Joker, his performance remains the best thing about this parable about beingware of false idols); There are still just enough bits of Batman lore scattered around to remind you that, canon or not, this takes place in a universe where intellectual property is at stake. That’s why, two years after murdering a TV talk show host, sparking riots and inspiring a mass movement of brothers in whiteface, Fleck finds himself in a prison that looks like Alcatraz but is actually Arkham Asylum. And why the district attorney played along industryHarry Lawtey, who wants to send Arthur to the electric chair for the five people he killed (six if you count his mother), is Harvey Dent.

As for Arthur, he’s downright catatonic and instead of telling jokes, he’s the butt of some great cosmic being. After he was caught, they wrote books and made TV movies about his killing spree. Fleck’s Q factor is at an all-time high, and yet he’s locked up while his lawyer (Catherine Keener) tries to prove he suffers from multiple personality disorder. A sadistic guardian father figure (Brendan Gleeson) occasionally offers Arthur kindness, but always reminds him that what is given can also be taken away. Life is a long, medicated wait for oblivion. And then Fleck sees her.

She is Lee Quinzel and like every Batman expert, subversive animation enthusiast and Margot Robbie devotee I will tell you, she is better known as Harley Quinn. When it was announced that Her Gaganess would be playing Mr. J’s beloved girlfriend-slash-psychosis colleague Slide for twoyou could practically hear the slow claps echoing across the land; It’s the kind of brilliant conceptual idea that goes beyond stunt casting into the sublime. And from the moment of their first sweet introduction, after the two look into each other’s eyes across a crowded mental asylum and Quinn acts like she’s about to blow her brains out, you can feel the promise that something electric is on the horizon – a combination of the Method actor and the meat suit of a chanteuse who might be more than the sum of her crazy, hyper-talented parts.

Gaga would be seen as a key element of what Phillips also wants to achieve with this sequel, which is to incorporate old-fashioned musical numbers into the psychological drama. And you’d think that these Dennis Potter-esque sequences, straight out of the American songbook and expressing the increasingly crazy fantasies of a couple in love (and also certifiably crazy), would be the highlight of this subverted superhero – story opposite. But with one notable exception — a burn-down-the-house version of Sammy Davis Jr.’s “Gonna Build a Mountain” — these scenes have the kind of black hole energy that sucks the oxygen out of the proceedings. Both Phillips and the stars have gone on record as wanting a less polished, rawer take on these standards, but the end result conveys neither the escapist thrill nor the open emotional outlets that such numbers typically provide, even with Phoenix dancing through you lounge and sings “For Once in My Life” loudly. The whole imagination falls flat, as does the singing, which is often intentionally wrong. It’s like attending a musical performed by people who just like it idea of musicals and not of the genre itself.

Which would be fine if that was the only problem Slide for twobut the quality control problems go beyond these recidivism numbers. Quinn is obsessed with Arthur. More specifically, she is obsessed with his Joker alter ego and is drawn to the idea that this charismatic figurehead is leading the revolution that will destroy the system. However, he doesn’t accept his inner supervillain and since he’s on trial for murder, Quinn wants him to send in the clown as soon as possible to rouse the crowd to action. Without giving too much away, Arthur eventually does, and the result unleashes chaos that even he can’t control.

But it’s a chaos that the film can’t really cope with or get under control. And while the push-pull tension between acknowledging the lure of complete social collapse and regretting the unleashing of the collective id is the real problem Slide for two seems to want to commit to it, you never get the feeling that it knows how to balance the two so that it achieves its goals. A handful of Gaga-centric moments stand out: a first kiss against a flaming backdrop, a silhouette shot in front of a letter against the full moon pas de deux; an amorous stroll away from a broken store window where Quinn has just uncovered a television. Still, the film also doesn’t know what to do with the singer or her character, and it’s hard not to replace her as another ace up the hole that this sequel doesn’t want to play. (Still, Gaga does what she can with what little time she has, and she continues to advocate for a side career in acting; whether we have a sharp meatball accent or not, we still stand by our exuberant one Praise her for getting in touch House of Gucci 100 percent.)

“I don’t think we give the people what they want,” Phoenix whines during a ’70s vaudeville fantasy — a set piece that counts as one of them DexThe bigger missed opportunities double as their own commentary – and you’ll want to applaud the fact that Phillips and Co. didn’t take the easy route here. They could have made one Bonnie and Clyde in smeared grease paint as the duo tear the city apart together. They could have escalated the anti-social idolatry instead of suggesting that perhaps this very idea led to the precipice of a real meltdown. They couldn’t have given us anything more or less Joker 2: The Joke, and stopped just giving people what they want instead of going for something a little more challenging and a little less obviously fan-friendly.

However, the question arises: who exactly is that? Joker: Slide for two for? Completistic little monsters? Warner Brothers Discovery board members? People who want it Singing in the rain Did 33 percent have more crazy clown owners? Having originally struck a chord with Phoenix’s frighteningly intense rendition of viewers who had easily fallen for a psycho clown – who felt they had a Travis Bickle for their generation and had perhaps repeated the same mistakes that the lonely men of God from back then – that’s new joker now wants to wag his finger at her. But it’s also so strange that it probably won’t appeal to the crossover types who threw gold statues at the first movie either. That’s the real ha-ha-ha punchline of the sequel. What do you get when you cross a disagreement over a fan favorite with a failed prestige project? Twice as much deux-deux.